Lesueur
What about the commercial possibilities of the Thule airbase? Is that open to the world for peacetime travel too?
Balchen
Yes it does. And I suggest that the location of industries and populations the airplane has the facility which put the Arctic in center of our world in our age. Namely, it can take the shortest route between any two places on the globe. and all the shortest routes--the great circle course--converge towards the North Pole. Some of them will even go across the geographic pole. If for instance we would go the shortest route from here to Karachi in India, The great circle course would take us straight across the North Pole. If we would go from here for instance to the Middle East we go through the high Arctic, north of Greenland, we will save several thousand miles. For Europe for instance is of tremendous importance is bases Thule and Alaska. Travel from London to Tokyo would save over two thousand miles one way, while going across the Arctic instead of the conventional way today.